Energy – Green Alliance Report.

The UK is facing a supply chain crunch on critical components needed for green industries like electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing, with a new Green Alliance report calling for the UK to build up domestic recycling of these valuable materials as part of energy saving measures.

The Green Alliance’s new report, published 19 November warns of growing pressures for UK green industries based on supply chains.

The report warns that use of lithium, cobalt, silver and rare earth elements in production of low-carbon technologies like EVs could exceed the nation’s per capita share of critical raw material reserves by 2050. Currently, China controls around 60% of the global mine production and 40% of the rare earth metal reserves.

In response, the Green Alliance is calling on UK policy to help build up the domestic recycling of valuable materials, as well as improving energy efficiency, to overcome these barriers.

The Green Alliance argues that improving freight efficiency, insulating homes and increasing public transport use and car sharing could halve the UK’s total use of critical resources by 2030. In tandem with this, the UK could also scale up recycling of green products and components could meet almost all of the UK’s critical raw material demand for EVs wind turbines and solar panels from secondary materials by 2050.

The Green Alliance’s senior policy adviser Susan Evans said: “With net-zero, there’s also a big opportunity for the UK to become much more resilient and self-sufficient.

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UK facing green industry supply chain pressures, urged to boost recycling and productivity